The patient speedily recovered, and was discharged in a little over a month, the only disastrous result of his extraordinary injuries being a small ventral hernia.
In wounds of the diaphragm, particularly those from stabs and gunshot injuries, death is generally due to accompanying lesions rather than to injury.

Hollerius, and Alexander Benedictus, made a favorable diagnosis of wounds made in the fleshy portions of the diaphragm, but despaired of those in the tendinous portions.

Bertrand, Fabricius Hildanus, la Motte, Ravaton, Valentini, and Glandorp, record instances of recovery from wounds of the diaphragm.
There are some peculiar causes of diaphragmatic injuries on record, laughter, prolonged vomiting, excessive eating, etc., being mentioned.
On the other hand, in his "Essay on Laughter (du Ris)," Joubert quotes a case in which involuntary laughter was caused by a wound of the diaphragm; the laughter mentioned in this instance was probably caused by convulsive movements of the diaphragm, due to some unknown irritation of the phrenic nerve.

Bremuse gives an account of a man who literally split his diaphragm in two by the ingestion of four plates of potato soup, numerous cups of tea and milk, followed by a large dose of sodium bicarbonate to aid digestion.

After this meal his stomach swelled to an enormous extent and tore the diaphragm on the right side, causing immediate death.
The diaphragm may be ruptured by external violence (a fall on the chest or abdomen), or by violent squeezing (railroad accidents, etc.), or according to Ashhurst, by spasmodic contraction of the part itself.